


Between the Shadow and the Soul

by blackmountainbones



Category: The Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Relationships, References to Depression, is this love? it's not enough, love makes it worse, trying (and failing) to love someone with mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmountainbones/pseuds/blackmountainbones
Summary: Noel watches Flowers for the first time. Julian's performance hits a little too close for comfort.





	Between the Shadow and the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [a tumblr thread](https://the-stoned-ranger.tumblr.com/post/184488334794/also-imagine-julian-watching-that-for-the-first) and an ask originally sent to [agarlandoffreshlycutears](https://agarlandoffeshlycutears.tumblr.com) AKA the esteemed [thatswherethelightgetsin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatswherethelightgetsin/pseuds/Thatswherethelightgetsin). I apologize for hijacking your thread and twisting the prompt to suit my needs, but I will not stop.

Noel was not sure why he’d waited so long to watch Flowers. He’d been proud of Julian when it had been announced–Julian always had aspired to be a _real_ actor, to break out of comedy. Flowers was his opportunity to carry a serious show, and while Noel was happy for him, he’d avoided watching it for months.

As eagerly as Noel watched and rewatched the shows they’d done together, he’d always been unsettled by watching Julian’s solo projects, the work he’d done without Noel. Noel supposed it was a habit from all the years they’d spent working side-by-side; as a result, Noel had never quite been able to suspend his disbelief enough to see the character. All he saw was Julian.

Like now. It was impossible to look at Maurice Flowers without seeing Julian Barratt superimposed on top of him. It didn’t help that Maurice wore Julian’s face and spoke with his voice.

Julian-as-Maurice looked older than Noel remembered. He was not sure if it had to do with the HD camera, the harsh lighting, or some combination of the two, but Julian looked older than his years: deep furrows on his forehead, beard shot through with grey. His eyes, which had always been small, had begun to take on a heavy, hooded quality with age. He looked so different from the snapshot Noel carried in his head, which was still lean and lupine, that it literally shocked him.

At first, Noel feel like he’d been robbed of something by the passage of time. As soon as he felt the illogical pang of anger, he was embarrassed by his own irrationality. Time couldn’t steal something that had never been given in the first place. Julian had kept himself away for a decade of his own free will; Noel had no right to be upset.

Grudgingly, Noel admitted Julian at least wore his wrinkles well–they added to his rugged, roguish appeal. The additional lines on his face merely made him look older, perhaps a bit careworn, but not unrecognizable. They were no more than a reminder of all the time he and Julian had spent apart–Noel’s mental image of Julian was nearly ten years out-of-date.

Yet, for all that his appearance had changed, Julian’s Maurice was familiar in a way that reminded Noel that Julian, for all he laughed, was rarely happy. Flowers had been described as a dark comedy, but Noel wasn’t sure what exactly was comedic about it, aside from the fact that the characters were quirky, borderline strange. The show seemed to be more about living with mental illness, how your loved ones struggled to love you without trying to fix you or make you better. It hit Noel in a place that still ached like a phantom limb all these years later, a place that was still raw, yet he couldn’t make himself stop watching.

He sat, enthralled, unable to move until the fifth episode, the moment Olivia Colman asked Maurice how to make it better, if love helped. Maurice told her, “Love makes it worse.”

Noel hit the power button on the remote so quickly that the sudden silence rang in his ears. Julian had said those words once to Noel: “Love makes it worse.” They echoed in the quiet room, sounding exactly the way Noel remembered.

It had happened on one of the bad days, one of the days that Julian retreated to his dark room and laid in bed all day, not even emerging to eat. Noel crawled into the bed next to him, offering a cup of fresh tea, and though Julian accepted the warm beverage, he’d barely bothered to sip it. It sat, cooling and ignored, on the nightstand, while the two men in the bed wrapped themselves up Julian’s sadness like a blanket.

These kinds of days had been happening more and more often, and Noel didn’t know what to do about it. Nothing could reach Julian when he got into one of his moods, and Noel’s attempts to comfort him only seemed to make him angry as well as depressed.

“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” Julian murmured into the duvet.

Noel wriggled a little closer, not-quite-cuddling him. “It doesn’t matter. I love you,” he said. He ran his fingers up and down Julian’s back soothingly, hopeful that Julian would accept the gesture of affection instead of flinching away and demanding not to be touched.

The contact made Julian flinch at first. He didn’t relax, not really, but he didn’t protest or try to get away, either. “Love can’t fix it, Noel.” He fit his forearm over his eyes, blocking out even the dim light that was filtering through the curtains. “In fact, I think love makes it worse.”

“How can love make things worse?” Noel asked. Love was all good things–love made things better. Love was the light shining in the darkness; it illuminated everything it touched. He kneaded at Julian’s back with his fists, knuckling at the tense muscle until the knot loosened, which seemed a fitting metaphor for the point he was trying to make.

Julian groaned softly and finally relaxed into Noel’s touch, allowing the massage in earnest. He rubbed his brow with his forearm and took his time considering the answer. “Because you’re here, being sad with me, instead of doing things that make you happy,” he finally said.

“It makes me happy to help you feel happy,” Noel responded.

Julian opened his eyes. They were dark and molten in the dim bedroom. “That’s what I mean.” His dark eyes burned into Noel’s blue ones. “If your happiness comes from making me happy, we’ll both be miserable forever.”

Noel shook his head. “It’s not like that, Ju.” He pressed his knuckles into the gaps between Julian’s vertebrae, working his way down his spine. Julian’s skin felt cool, despite the fact that he’d been under the blankets all day, and Noel unfurled his fists and rubbed his palms against Julian’s skin to warm him up. “You know it’s not. Besides, I’m the Sunshine Kid–I’ve got enough happiness for the both of us.”

“I wonder,” Julian asked philosophically, “what happens when you run out?”

“I won’t,” Noel promised, not yet aware that it was a promise he would not be able to keep. For the moment, Noel still believed that love was capable of fixing everything. He was young enough to have not yet learned that love and happiness were finite resources–he’d been so madly, giddily in love that it seemed impossible that he would ever not have enough.

They laid together in Julian’s bed while Noel continued to work at the knots in Julian’s back. Noel thought that if he concentrated hard enough, all the love and happiness he felt would flow from his hands onto Julian’s skin and down into the muscle and viscera below, enough so that Julian would feel it too, feel it enough to be happily in love just like Noel, just for a little bit.

Love made lots of things feel better. But Julian was right–love made it worse to see the man you loved slipping further from you through the years, burrowing deeper into a den of isolation, self-hatred, and whiskey. That was the fundamental problem with Julian: Love made many things easier to bear, but watching Julian succumb to his melancholy got harder, not easier, the more you loved him.

Love made it worse. Love made it so bad that it’d become impossible for Noel to stay.

Noel knew well enough what it had looked like from the outside: Noel partying more and more, out every night, off his tits on exotic cocktails of designer drugs and loose women, while Julian stayed home, playing daddy to his twins and devoted partner to his wife.

But what they didn’t see was the way Julian would lock himself in his study to chain-smoke and drink one scotch after another, slipping into an increasingly-intoxicated state of fugue as the night went on. He’d get so wrapped up in self-loathing that he hated to be touched, or even seen. Noel went out because he couldn’t stand to be near him–Julian’s moods were like a riptide; being around him began to make Noel feel like he was being pulled under along with him. Julian's sadness would pull at Noel, threatening to drag him deeper every time, and Noel was never sure he wouldn’t drown of it. Love made it worse.

Leaving Julian hurt at first, but then the hurting stopped. When it did, Noel felt like he was able to take a deep breath for the first time in a decade. Like quitting a bad habit, Noel considered, feeling a bit guilty about how relieved he’d felt when it was over. He still felt like a knob for not being able to be by Julian’s side for the worst of it. But he’d had his own shite to work through, back then. He couldn’t do Julian’s too, not anymore.

Noel sat on the couch, quietly fidgeting with the remote, playing the words _Love makes it worse_ over in his mind until they began to sound like nonsense. Then he’d gone to bed and tried to sleep, but something in him was wound up too tight and he just tossed and turned. The pregnancy made Lliana clingy when she slept, and while Noel loved her, desperately, she had the wrong shape and the wrong smell for the type of thoughts he was having. Eventually, he wriggled out of the sheets to pace on the tiny balcony, trying to make sense of the manic jumble of words and feelings crawling under his skin.

The night air was cool and slightly humid with fog, and Noel paced until he heard a garbage truck groaning its way up the block, a sure sign that the streets of London were slowly waking up. Noel suspected that dawn would break soon, and was surprised to realize he hadn’t pulled an all-nighter in over a year.

He supposed that he should make some tea and get the day started. No sooner had he filled the kettle than he heard the toilet flush; the baby had probably been sleeping on Lliana’s bladder and woken her.

Sure enough, Lliana popped into the kitchen instead of heading back to bed. “Long night?” she asked.

“You could say that,” Noel said, plopping onto a stool at the kitchen island.

Lliana seemed to sense that Noel needed some caretaking and took over the tea-making duties. Even if it was a little too milky and not sweet enough, Noel appreciated the gesture: he was the primary tea-maker between the two of them, and having Lliana make him tea comforted him even if it wasn’t perfect, especially since she’d sworn off caffeine during the pregnancy. “Want to talk about it?” she asked, voice still fuzzily half-asleep as she sat down beside him.

“I watched Flowers last night,” he admitted, fidgeting a bit with his mug.

“And?”

“Lli–” Noel said, groping for the words. “I miss him.”

Lliana didn’t ask _who_. She could tell by the pleading note in Noel’s voice that he meant _Julian_.

“But he’s always so… _sad,_ ” Noel continued. “I thought loving him would make it better, but it never did.” His voice was beginning to go thick, and Noel was afraid he might start to cry. He swallowed a few times, but it didn’t seem to work: his voice kept cracking. “The more I loved him, the worse it got.” Lliana scooted her chair a bit closer to scoop Noel into her arms, cradling his face against her chest and muttering indistinct soothing sounds. She was smushing his nose a bit, but Noel didn’t complain. “I miss him so much, Lli. But he sucks the life out of me.”

Lliana didn’t say anything, just held him until his breathing evened out and Noel was able to speak again. “And then I ask myself, what if he just fucking offs himself tomorrow? Stabs himself in the heart before we have a chance to make things right? And I feel like a selfish git, because the idea of talking to him still hurts too much to try, even then.”

“You’re responsible for your own happiness, Noel, not for making Julian happy,” she murmured. “That’s on Julian, not you.”

They’d had this conversation more than a few times. Lliana never failed to remind Noel that it hadn’t been anyone’s fault that they'd fallen apart: not Noel’s fault for wanting to protect himself, not Julian’s fault neither, not for being sick. And Julian _was_ sick--just because his sickness was in his head didn't make it any less real. Noel was glad she was there to remind him; he so very often forgot, and it caused him no small amount of angst.

Noel’s hands cradled her bump, which seemed to have popped overnight, still feeling a bit amazed that they would be parents in a few short months. Loving Julian had made him jaded in some ways, but Noel’d never stopped believing love was capable of amazing things. That he and Lliana had managed to love each other so much, they’d created a whole new human still amazed him.

“I love you,” Noel said, because it seemed very important to do so at that very moment.

She kissed his forehead and mussed his hair affectionately. “And I love you.” Noel could hear the smile in her words even if he couldn’t see it on her lips.  

“Loving you makes things better. And I love that about you.” Noel hadn’t quite realized it was possible to love someone so much it made you want to live instead of die of it until Lliana showed him how. He held her close and breathed her in, full of happiness, bursting with it, even, as the dawn chased away the last of night’s shadows.

**Author's Note:**

> "I love you as dark things are meant to be loved:  
> secretly, between the shadow and the soul."  
> \--Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XVII
> 
> comments and kudos feed the muse and keep the words coming. FEED ME. (please)


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